


come on, darling, eat

by templeofshame



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: 2009, First Meeting, M/M, consensual cannibal au, mentions of self-injury as a concept, no violence or gore or death though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-11 06:00:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16470095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/templeofshame/pseuds/templeofshame
Summary: It's Oct. 19, 2009, and Dan's taking a train to meet a cute cannibal he met online.





	come on, darling, eat

**Author's Note:**

> don't blame @waveydnp even though the idea of a cannibal au was hers.
> 
> happy halloween, or like, it's my branding every day.

At first, Dan is definitely not serious. But he prides himself on being something of an expert on the weirdness that the internet has to offer. And like… cannibals. Actual cannibal social networking. Definitely a kind of internet weirdness he should know, right? Worth making an account and promising about seven times that he is not, and never has been, any kind of law enforcement. It's probably the stuff of his mom’s nightmares. Or, at least, the part where her son is on a train, traveling across the country to meet a 22-year-old man who also happens to be a cannibal, or on his way there.

Phil had said he was just as new to this as Dan, and Dan believes him. Dan trusts him. Maybe that makes him an idiot, but he tells himself he’s just a bit self-destructive. And a bit of a sucker for those eyes, the fringe, and that laugh where his tongue peeks out from his teeth. Dan’s not sure what he thought a cannibal would look like, but not like Phil, even if he looks like Voldemort a bit. If Voldemort had a nose and a lovely smile and sometimes glasses. If Dan could make Voldemort laugh. 

They’ve been Skyping and texting for… it’s gotta be a couple months now. Months of talk, tentative and sometimes deep, about their hopes and fears and curiosities. Dan holds back when Phil talks about wanting to go beyond the silly kind of weird people write off, to have the experiences and not just the ideas. And to have that kind of trust with someone, if they were actually doing the thing. Dan doesn’t want to talk--or think--too much about why he’s doing this thing, if he’s doing this thing, so he focuses on what draws him to _Phil_. Dan’s been flirting with more than an overly dramatic form of self-mutilation.

It’s a dismissive way of looking at it, Dan the emo drama queen, but it’s also a little less scary. To compare what they’re planning to something people do. And something people _stop_ doing. And that’s important to Phil. It’s one of the things that stuck out about Phil’s post, before Dan saw the eyes and the fringe and the laugh. Phil wants to eat human flesh, but not do any permanent harm to anyone. When Dan was definitely not serious, he laughed: Phil the gentle cannibal. But he kept coming back to it. Maybe Dan was too much of a wuss to go straight to death or dismemberment, but he had the guts to DM the cute guy who didn’t want to “really” hurt anyone, who stressed his inexperience where other guys bragged about how thoroughly they knew what they were doing. Some of them posted consent videos from past “encounters” that could almost definitely get them convicted of lots of things. But Phil talked about himself, his love of animals and Mario Kart and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He did include a video, but it was an experimental horror short he made in uni. Dan didn’t message anyone else.

When Dan arrives in Manchester, with a fairly extensive first aid kit and a few types of blades, he doesn’t expect their first stop to be Starbucks. Phil’s parents are out of town and their house is the only feasible place to do, or even talk about, what they’d planned. Starbucks, on the other hand, is very public, well-lit... and Phil’s smile has an edge of nervousness. It hits Dan then, as they stand in line, that Phil too is meeting a sort-of-armed stranger from the internet.

Phil’s explanation is different, though: “Of course I'm buying you Starbucks! You’re not just a piece of meat!” And there’s the laugh, the glimpse of Phil’s tongue at his own joke. Dan sputters, glad he doesn’t have his caramel macchiato yet to spit on himself or Phil or unsuspecting bystanders. He figures he can get away with staring for a moment, at that laugh, at Phil’s tongue and his lips. It’s what this whole thing is about, Phil’s mouth. Dan lets himself watch. Phil’s grin just grows as they step forward in line, a little closer together, and he playfully bites the air by Dan’s ear.

After a quick tour of Manchester, they make it back to Phil’s parents’ probably-haunted semi-mansion. (Dan doesn’t believe in ghosts, but the trusting-Phil thing is addictive, and lets him forget that the rules of physics, and of pain, aren’t suspended here.) Dan helps Phil pull a couple old dropcloths out of the garage. There’s the bathtub for the bulk of the bloodflow, but, “You're too tall to be cramped in there for long!" Dan notices the way Phil's gaze traces the length of his body. "But if I get blood _anywhere_ , Mum will have a lot of questions to ask my ghost once she’s killed me.”

“What, you’re not out to your mum?” Dan jokes, but Phil blanches. “As a cannibal, I mean.” Dan’s not sure if he’s out as anything to his parents. He doubts they’d be shocked to see either the way he looks at Phil or the scars he expects to come home with. Ugh, he has to go home. “Not that mine know I’m… I don’t even know what you call what I am. Cannibal chow?”

“A snack?” Phil suggests with an awkward wink-attempt and a little claw. They’re sat cross-legged on a dropcloth now, in the hall between the bathroom and Phil’s room. Phil’s got his video camera in his non-clawing hand, but he’s just fidgeting with it.

“Or depressed,” Dan says. “I mean, I wasn’t ready to die but no one becomes whatever it’s called at the peak of mental health.”

“Oh.” They’d talked about it, a bit, the way Dan feels disconnected from his life and his awkward noodle body, the way he doesn’t feel enough or feels too much or just the wrong things. But it’s all been abstract, outside of the jokes that don’t always show the reality of their roots. Now Phil is seeing, realizing that there’s really something wrong with him, and Dan hates it. He can’t look at Phil. “I guess I should have known that,” Phil half-whispers.

Dan rushes to what seems like safer ground. “We should film the video. The consent. Not that-- nothing’ll go wrong, and I won’t try to-- we’ll stay… friends. But it’s good to, y’know. Have.” Dan’s nervous, and his brain is running far ahead of his mouth. He’s still avoiding looking at Phil even as he reaches for the camera.

“Dan,” Phil says, soft but firm. And he waits. He puts his hand over Dan’s that’s shakily gripping the camera, and he just waits. Dan’s hand stills under Phil’s touch, comforting in spite of the part of Dan that just wants to lash out, to push him away. And Phil just waits.

“Phil.” He only says it because he can’t wait forever, and he thinks maybe Phil could. Maybe he’d let Dan fall asleep on a dropcloth in the hallway, holding his hand in place. But after a moment, Dan meets his eyes.

Dan expects something kind but maybe a touch condescending, about how young Dan is and how he shouldn’t agree to anything when he’s distressed that he’d regret. Something gentle and protective but with the hint that maybe Phil chose wrong, that Dan couldn’t handle what they were here to do. That Dan wasn’t enough. And Dan couldn’t really argue; he wasn’t at all sure that this wasn’t a terrible mistake and a thoroughly ridiculous way to embarrass himself in front of a guy he just wanted to like him. Whether or not Phil ever ate his flesh.

That’s not what he sees in Phil’s face, though. Phil looks torn and tense and a little afraid, and more vulnerable than Dan’s seen yet. Maybe he’s not just waiting for Dan. “I don’t think I can do it,” Phil blurts out. He pulls his hand away, braces himself before continuing. “But I don’t want you to message someone else.”

“I wouldn’t!” Dan says, before his brain can catch up with what Phil’s saying. _Phil_ can’t do it?

“I can’t hurt you. I know it’s not supposed to, really, but…” Dan can hear the threat of tears in Phil’s voice. “I want to… I don’t want to help you hurt yourself.” 

“You want to what? Am I… not what you were looking for?” Dan’s voice is shaky now too. He wants to lash out to protect himself from... rejection? The idea that Phil can save him? Or is it not even about him, just the internal conflict of the gentle cannibal?

“You are! You’re better. I want to get to know you for real, Dan. Even though that’s not what you want.”

Dan reaches a slow, tentative hand to Phil’s shoulder. “Phil. I want that. I’m scared too,” he admits. “We could do something else?”

“You didn’t come all the way here to go to Starbucks and walk around Manchester,” Phil says, bitter.

“I came to see you. And to find out if I’d really do it. And now I know. If we filmed me saying I’m ready, I’d be acting. Might as well be one of your student films.”

The distress fades from Phil's face. It's a beautiful sight, how Phil loves what he loves. “You watched that?”

“Duh. You’ve got quite a mind, mate.” Dan pauses, taking the camera from Phil’s loosened grip. “We could… film something else? We’ve got your camera out and your house is well creepy.”

“You’d do that? With me?”

Dan gets to his feet, reaching down to Phil. “You’re the one with the skills. I’d be honored.” Then, Dan hears Phil’s stomach rumble. “But you don’t get to eat…”

“Let’s fold up these things. Then I’ll make us popcorn.”

**Author's Note:**

> come say hi on [tumblr](http://templeofshame.tumblr.com/post/179622332320/come-on-darling-eat-rating-t-16k-its-oct). if you actually read this thing, you'd probably like my blog.


End file.
